Is Google Making Us Stupid?

“Is Google Making Us Stupid?”​In the article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid” in the magazine The Atlantic, the author, Nicholas Carr, recounts his difficulties with concentration while reading lengthy articles and books. Carr claims that these difficulties may be caused by an increase in the time he spends on the internet. His principle argument is that the internet provides us with a means of rapidly accessing information that we are searching for and this causes our minds to be used to obtaining information in such a swift manner – this is proof that, contrary to his opinion, Google is making us smart. ​The internet, as Carr agrees, is a time-saving tool. Carr says: “Research that once required days in the stacks or periodical rooms of libraries can now be done in minutes.” In today’s world, people simply do not have the time to spend hours or maybe even days in a library sifting through mountains of books and articles to find a single piece of information that is actually pertinent to what they are searching for if they can even find it. What Google does is grant universal access to thousands of resources including books, articles, encyclopedias, and hundreds of other types of media at the click of a mouse. The ability to access such a vast amount of information in such a prompt manner provides us with the time to discover even more information and deepen our knowledge of the subject much further that what could simply be a line or two in a book. ​Some may argue that Google does not make us stupid, but rather lazy. They claim that instead of having the initiative to delve through the reading, society would rather take the “easy” way and just use the Internet. This is an invalid argument. The internet is simply a highway of information that provides us rapid access, increased efficiency, and better quality of information. Is Google making us stupid? No, Google is making us smarter and provides us with a means to “work smarter, not harder.” ​